


The Other House

by Gracierocket



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:38:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3166826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gracierocket/pseuds/Gracierocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the four founders got together to build their school, another person slipped into the mix, and another house...</p><p>(Short story I wrote for a friend's birthday  - she's never felt she fitted into any of the four houses so I thought I'd give her another option.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other House

This rather whimsical short chapter was originally intended to form part of Hogwarts: A History, but was excluded before publication. The story goes that Bathilda Bagshot wrote a hasty letter to her publisher on the morning the book was due to be published. The note is scrawled in handwriting so close to illegible that there is considerable scholarly discussion as to the explanation she gives. Most scholars agree that it reads, “story is unsubstantiated”, but a significant minority believes that the words are actually, “bloody Dumbledore and his bloody secrets”. The chapter can still be found in the Hogwarts Library and is printed here for the first time by kind permission of the incumbent headmaster, Professor Neville Longbottom.

Hogwarts: A History  
Chapter 3  
[Removed before publication]

On the day the Founders met for the first time on the site of what was to become Hogwarts itself, several contemporary accounts suggest that a fifth person joined them. The story goes that she came smiling into their midst after the first towers of Hogwarts had been charmed from out of the bare earth. Rowena Ravenclaw sat pouring over a blueprint, her wand passing over points of poor structural integrity, muttering incantations that would keep them all safe. Salazar Slytherin sailed around the parameters on his broom, performing the complex charms that would make their new school unplottable forever more. Helga Hufflepuff, kneeling on a cushion, murmured into the earth, making it stable and strong and fertile so that, in time, a rich forest would grow up beside the castle and encourage the magical beasts to join them. Godric Griffindor stood in the centre of them all, wand outstretched as the bricks and mortar came shooting past his head and forming what would one day be the Great Hall.

Helga looked up from her gentle work as the woman alighted on the ground beside her. Her face broke into a broad grin, instantly echoed in the other woman's face.

“Building a school, is it?” said the woman.

Godric strode over to them. “You said you weren't coming, you sly dog!” he boomed. “Now we can five houses instead of four!”

Behind him, Helga rolled her eyes. This 'let's divide the children into categories' plan had been a source of contention since the beginning.

For answer, the woman plucked Godric's hat from his head and smiled him a gentle rejection. “Keep a room for me,” she said. And then she disappeared off into the air again, leaving the hat vibrating slightly in the dust. Afterwards, none of them could be sure whether they had actually seen her use a broom.

And so it is that when new children arrive at Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat has five options available to it. Because Helga's friend knew that there would be those who would not sit easily within a narrow set of traits, those who were not truly Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, Slytherin or Griffindor, but who would flourish best if allowed to choose their own path. So in that moment when Godric's hat was on her head, the woman cast a subtle spell, and made another house. It is not often spoken of, its name is never mentioned in the song, and its people, few in number, choose to take classes with one of the other houses, or move between them. They always make friends easily.

But it is there, its common room nestled half way up the furthest tower to the west. Not high and cold as the Ravenclaw tower, or low and earthy as the Hufflepuff, but warm and open, with an excellent view of the sunset over the mountains. Its residents usually take for their colours coral and charcoal – shades that are nebulous and indistinct. Coral is not pink, which anyone can point to, but is the name we give to a thousand different, subtle shades. Charcoal may be any of the colours of shadow and night and the warmth of the last embers. For this is the house of self-determination, of as many shades are there are people. 

The symbol of this house is the bird. Not any particular bird. Some sources depict it as a sparrow, and some as a penguin, or a hawk, or a phoenix. It has had as many forms and colours as there have been people in this secret place. The house has a name, of course. The Four Founders, once they discovered it, referred to it as The Other House, but the name those inside it use, the private name, when they have a need for one, is Quillwing.


End file.
